


your name carved on my soul

by spilled_notes



Category: Holby City
Genre: Elinor Lives, F/F, Soulmates AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 19:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10771311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilled_notes/pseuds/spilled_notes
Summary: A while back someone on Tumblr (sorry, can't find the post or remember who!) posted about a soulmates AU in which a HR mistake leads to Serena thinking Bernie's name is actually Bernadette. Inspiration struck.





	your name carved on my soul

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Meat Loaf's 'I'd Lie for You (And That's the Truth)'.

It appears on Serena’s sixteenth birthday, sixteen years to the minute that she was born. She scrambles out of bed, pulls off her pyjamas and examines herself eagerly. There it is, in flowing cobalt script along the ridge of her right hipbone, half hidden beneath her knickers: _Berenice._

‘So?’ her mother asks her, eyes bright, when Serena comes down for breakfast.

‘Berenice,’ Serena tells her.

Adrienne’s brow crinkles in thought. ‘Berenice,’ she mutters. ‘Berenice, Berenice. You know, I don’t think I’ve _ever_ known a Berenice.’

When her father gets home from his conference that evening he hugs her tight and she clings to him.

‘Unusual name,’ he says softly. ‘Much easier to find than a Claire or Elizabeth.’

‘Or a George,’ her mother adds with a smile.

Serena spends hours that night gazing at the name in soft lamplight, thumb rubbing back and forth over the eight letters, wondering what sort of person her Berenice is. Wondering if her own name has appeared on Berenice’s skin yet, if Berenice is lying awake wondering about her.

*

There are no Berenices at St Winifred’s. Nor on her medical degree.

‘At least you haven’t got to trawl through every Sam you meet,’ her roommate laments.

‘I suppose,’ Serena sighs. ‘But I haven’t even met _one_ woman called Berenice yet.’

‘You’ll find her,’ her father tells her, no trace of doubt in his voice, when she receives her fourth wedding invitation of the year, all from soulmates who’ve already found each other.

*

Serena decides early on that she won’t be one of those women who saves herself for her soulmate. She dates: dates men and women, people with unmet soulmates and people without. A few people with her name on their skin in amber or emerald or inky black, who get excited when they meet her, but none of them are Berenice and she isn’t their Serena.

She discovers that she loves sex, loves it with both men and women, wonders if it feels different with your soulmate, if it would feel different with Berenice. Discovers that she longs to settle down but not with him, not with her, however much she likes them, however perfect they are. Because they are not _her._

Things never last; the wondering always gets in the way, eventually. The ones with soulmates understand because they feel it too, and they go their separate ways with best wishes and hope. The ones without don’t. She gets used to partners accusing her of not being fully invested, of not wanting to build a life with them, of making them feel like she’s just treading water until she finds _her_. And she tries not to feel too guilty, because is it really her fault?

*

For a moment she thinks she's found her. The first class of her MBA they pass around a sheet of paper and sign in. There, six lines above, is the sequence of letters as familiar as her own name. Serena’s heart thumps loud in her ears; she has to blink to dispel the fuzziness in her eyes.

And then she looks more closely and sees that it’s not Berenice but Bernice, no second ‘e’. She feels suddenly forlorn and teary, and certain that this is the closest she’ll ever get, that those few seconds of utter joy are all she’s ever going to get.

‘You’ll find her,’ her father tells her again when she calls him, desperately trying to hold back her tears.

‘What if I don’t, daddy?’ she asks, voice so small it barely carries down the line across the Atlantic. ‘What if I never meet her?’

‘You will, sweet pea. And she’ll be worth it.’

*

And then she meets Edward. It starts like any other relationship and Serena fully expects it to end like the rest too. But Edward is different. Edward doesn’t have a name on his skin, insists over and over that he doesn’t mind that she does. And she believes him.

One night he tells her that he loves her, that he’s sure this is what it must feel like to find your soulmate. She doesn’t tell him that he’s wrong even though she’s certain he is, certain finding Berenice would feel more – she isn’t exactly sure what, but more _something_ , anyway. But she does love him. Even if sometimes she still lies awake beside him and, hand wrapped around her hip (the one place she won’t let him touch, won’t let him kiss, the one place that is hers alone), wonder where Berenice is now.

Before she has chance to become restless as she always does, before the ache of not knowing and wondering and longing becomes too much to ignore, she somehow finds herself pregnant. (Well no, she’s a doctor, she knows exactly how it happened, but it still comes as a surprise.)

There’s a moment, before she tells Edward, before she tells anyone, when she considers an abortion, because this would tie her to him forever and she doesn’t know if she can do that, not when she knows Berenice is out there somewhere. But then she thinks of the tiny bundle of cells dividing and growing and forming inside her, and her hand automatically comes to rest on her belly and she knows that she can’t, knows that she desperately wants this baby.

When she tells Edward he insists on marrying her.

‘We’re practically married already,’ he says, grinning, after he has kissed her and whirled her around until she begged him to put her down. ‘Why not make it official – for the baby?’

She wonders if he thinks this means she’s given up on Berenice, forgotten about her, if that’s what everyone else will think. Particularly when she tells her parents and her mother is delighted to have a grandchild on the way and a wedding to plan, even if she’s never quite liked Edward. But her father gazes at her with a silent question and she answers him with a tiny shake of her head, with the hand on her stomach drifting to her hip.

‘I love him,’ she tells him later. ‘He isn’t her, but I do love him.’

As the baby grows the longing for Berenice, the niggling emptiness she’s always felt, shrinks, and she finds herself wondering if perhaps soulmates can’t be made as well as predetermined, if she can’t have just as strong a bond with Edward as she could have with Berenice.

*

When Elinor arrives she barely thinks of Berenice. Barely thinks of anything she’s so exhausted, so enamoured of this tiny person they’ve made. So full of love for Ellie she thinks there’s no way she could ever feel empty again, could ever long for anything (beyond a full night’s sleep) again.

She’s wrong.

Ellie’s six months old, is playing beside Serena on the bed while she reads the latest _Journal of Vascular Surgery,_ trying to keep up with current research, when her tiny hand grips at Serena’s hip.

 _Does she have a family?_ she wonders suddenly. _What would it be like, bringing our children up together?_

Ellie’s ten months old, and Edward is telling her in what he clearly thinks is a reasonable tone of voice that it’s far too early for her to go back to work.

 _She’d support me,_ she thinks, and knows she’s right.

Ellie’s thirteen months old, and Serena gets home from a long shift to find Edward asleep on the sofa, the kitchen a mess even though he’s had the day off and promised to tidy up. When Ellie wakes in the night, she’s the one who has to get up and soothe her.

_She wouldn’t be like this, we’d be in this together._

Fifteen months old, and he stays out all night drinking even though they’ve finally managed to get time off together when the babysitter was available.

Eighteen months old and he suggests they try for another baby, even though she’s always told him she only ever wanted one, even though she’s just applied for a better position on a bigger ward.

Twenty months old and he wakes her up when he gets in late, all sloppy kisses and grasping hands, when he knows she’s on an early and has to be up in a few hours.

Berenice starts to haunt her again, her waking mind and her dreams. The more Edward frustrates her the more she thinks of her, and she knows it’s a vicious cycle because the more she thinks of her the more distant she becomes, but she can’t help it.

‘We have a child together,’ Edward rages at her one evening, when her fingers have drifted to her hip and her mind to Berenice without her even realising. ‘Is that not a stronger bond than some name on your skin, some woman you’ve never even met?’

Twenty-two months old and she hears the first rumour of an affair whispered on the ward.

Two years old and he’s late to Ellie’s birthday party, and she knows it’s because he was with someone else, has lost track of whether it’s the nurse or the pharmacist or the junior doctor.

She knows she should try, for Ellie’s sake if not her own, but can’t bring herself to care any more. Not when he clearly doesn’t.

‘I loved you, Serena,’ he says when she finally can’t stand it and asks for a divorce. ‘Even though you’ve got someone else’s name on your skin.’

‘You said you understood,’ she says, voice low and cold, and she knows he’s annoyed she isn’t being more emotional.

‘I thought you’d get over it,’ he retorts, and she barks a harsh laugh because of course he did. How could he possibly understand the constant pull, the emptiness she feels, when he doesn’t have a name on his own skin?

‘So this is all my fault, then?’

‘Well you’re more interested in _her_ than in your husband. Is it any wonder I had to look somewhere else?’

She finds a lawyer with a name on her skin, fights tooth and nail for Ellie and the house and every last fish finger in the freezer and gets them all because he knew, she made no secret of it, and he’s the one who was unfaithful.

She can’t regret it, though, can’t regret him, because she has Ellie and she’s worth all of it, every moment.

*

She never stops looking, but as she gets older and still has yet to meet a single Berenice the hope begins to dwindle.

 _Is it really that rare a name?_ she wonders.

So she dates without expectation, makes it clear she isn’t looking for anything serious or lasting, and then as she gets busier and busier she doesn’t date at all and just works, harder than ever.

 _Another huge hospital without a Berenice on the staff?_ she thinks every time she starts a new job and eagerly gets to know all the staff, grateful for managerial roles that allow easier access to files and wards other than her own. _Really?_

Her father dies. ‘You’ll find her,’ he tells her, over and over as she sits beside him and holds his hand and tries not to cry. ‘Whether you search for her or not, you’ll find her. Don't ever give up hope, sweet pea.’

Searching hasn’t been working so she decides to stop, to settle in one place and one job for a while and just live her life. She’s used to being on her own now, just her and Ellie. She’s managed this long without Berenice, knows she’ll still manage if he’s wrong and they never meet. Knows the nagging emptiness and tug of longing will always be with her but tells herself it doesn’t matter, gets so used to it that it becomes normal and she barely notices it any more.

She still secretly checks the staff list when she does move hospitals, though. Still anxiously checks the candidates when she’s on interview panels. Still feels her heart rise in hope and then sink in disappointment every time when no, still no Berenice.

 _Just the two of us,_ she thinks when she looks in on Ellie on her way to bed. _We don’t need anyone else._

But she can’t concentrate on her book, pushes back the covers and her pyjamas and caresses the name on her hip and has to swallow down a sob.

_Where are you? Do you long for me too?_

*

She starts at Holby, does her routine check of personnel but only because it’s what she always does. It’s been over thirty years now; she barely feels any hope or disappointment any more. Serena wonders what she would do if confronted by a Berenice in her hospital, on her ward, wonders if the shock would render her speechless and immobile, wonders how many times she would have to read the name – how many other people she would have to ask to check it – before she believed it. How she would react when she actually met her. What it would feel like if it wasn’t _her_.

She remembers the last man she met with ‘Serena’ on his skin, remembers how his face fell and his eyes dimmed when she told him it wasn’t her. Remembers Bernice, and doesn’t know if that crushing disappointment might not be worse than never meeting her.

She likes it at Holby, eventually, unexpectedly finds her place on AAU and fights to bring some order to its inherent chaos, gathers a little family of misfits around her, colleagues and friends who she supports, who support her.

Her mother dies, right there on her ward. She no longer knows who Serena is most of the time, is often lost in the past. Talks about her husband, her beloved soulmate, about how she suddenly felt complete and alive when they met, when they touched, when they danced. Asks Serena when he’s coming to see her, demands that she call him again, and Serena has to wave Raf over to finish her obs, has to retreat to her office and blink away tears.

It’s Raf who hugs her when she finally falls apart, Raf who drunk buries Adrienne with her, who bundles her into a taxi and off to Paris.

 _Berenice,_ she thinks as she wanders along the Seine, the longing stronger than it’s been for years. _How would you comfort me?_

*

She feels something when she meets Bernie Wolfe, some spark when their eyes and hands meet, a sudden flare of heat along her iliac crest, along the name she’s all but given up on.

 _Bernie,_ she muses. _Could it be?_

She dismisses it as fancy, as a manifestation of loneliness. Because surely Bernie would have said something, wouldn’t she?

And then Bernie comes to work on AAU, and _my god, if we don’t just click._

She doesn’t miss the wondering looks from her staff, her little AAU family, from Ric, even from Bernie’s son when he’s brought in after an RTC. Because everyone else can see it too – how well they work together, how much passes between them without so much as a word, how seamless they are in theatre.

‘You forgave her lies, just like that,’ Raf says a couple of days after the incident with Cameron. ‘You never do that. Is she–’

But they’re interrupted by the red phone before he can finish the question, before she has to try and find an answer.

And suddenly she has to know. Almost feverishly she hunts through the mess on Bernie’s desk for something – _anything_ – official, anything with her full name on it.

And then her heart plummets, and she has to sink into Bernie’s chair.

Bernadette. Bernadette Wolfe.

Her hand goes to her hip, thumb absentmindedly stroking the name through layers of fabric.

Not her.

She feels disproportionately disappointed.

*

Bernie sighs and flops into her chair, so heavily that it rolls back a few inches and a wheel clonks against the cabinet behind her.

‘Everything alright?’ Serena asks, looking up from the discharge form she’s completing.

‘Just had to go and see HR again,’ Bernie grumbles. ‘I’ve been every month since I started and they still can’t get my name right.’

‘A misspelling?’ Serena asks. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time. Harry spent his first fortnight as Trellis instead of Tressler. Took him a lot longer than that to shake it as a nickname.’

‘Worse,’ Bernie replies. ‘They think Bernie’s short for Bernadette. I mean, I know I got my own name right on my application form, and my handwriting isn’t _that_ bad.’

The pen slips from Serena’s fingers and drops to the desk with a clatter. ‘I- isn’t it? Short for Bernadette?’

‘No, it’s Berenice.’

She looks up at Serena’s sharp intake of breath, frowns as Serena stands up and fumbles with the button of her trousers.

‘Serena?’

And then Serena’s beside her, top pulled up, waistband of her trousers and knickers pushed down over her hipbone so she can see –

Bernie reaches a trembling finger to trace the name on Serena’s soft skin. Her own name. She stares at it, then stares up at Serena whose eyes are wide and shining and hopeful.

‘Oh,’ Bernie breathes. ‘Bloody HR.’

She pulls her hand away, stands up and tugs at the button of her own trousers, peels the tight material back and drags up her shirt so Serena can see her name, darkest red across the pale skin of Bernie’s left hip, a mirror to hers.

And then she pulls Serena to her, hugs her tight so their hips and names are pressed together, and feels Serena bury her face in her shoulder.

‘I thought I’d never find you,’ Serena whispers. And then she pulls back and frowns, her hands dropping to rest on Bernie’s arms. ‘Hang on, you knew it was me?’

Bernie shakes her head. ‘I’ve met other Serenas who didn’t have my name. You didn’t say anything so I assumed you were another.’

‘Bloody HR,’ Serena says with a soft laugh. She tangles the fingers of one hand with Bernie’s, gently strokes her face with the other. ‘It’s you,’ she murmurs in wonder.

Serena slowly leans closer and kisses her, slides her arms around Bernie’s neck and her fingers into Bernie’s hair, smiles against her lips as Bernie’s arms come around her back again, firmly holding her in place.

‘Sorry,’ Serena whispers when they part, though there’s no contrition on her face.

‘Are you kidding?’ Bernie grins. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that since I was sixteen.’

For the longest moment they gaze at one another, noses brushing, eyes alight, fingers tracing cheekbones and jawlines, hands caressing necks and shoulders, waists and backs and hips.

‘I feel like I’ve,’ Serena starts, then trails off, too engrossed in examining the fine lines at the corners of Bernie’s eyes. ‘Since we met, I feel like I’ve,’ she tries again, rolls her eyes when she still can’t find the words. ‘Like I’m–’

‘Not looking any more?’ Bernie suggests, with a half smile. ‘Like that niggling emptiness has gone?’

‘Yes,’ Serena says, relieved. ‘Exactly.’

‘And now it all makes sense,’ Bernie breathes, fingers gentle on Serena’s cheek.

‘Yes,’ Serena repeats and kisses her again, lips salty with tears of joy. ‘No wonder everything feels so right with you.’

They allow themselves a few minutes more to gaze and bask, to kiss and touch and laugh in disbelief. And then they carefully wipe away tear tracks and mascara stains, tuck themselves in and rebutton their trousers, open the office door and finish their shifts with only bright smiles and something knowing in their eyes to suggest that anything has changed.

Serena has to get home for Jason, apologises profusely until Bernie touches her elbow and shakes her head.

‘It’s been thirty-five years. What’s a few more days?’

They part in the car park with a smile and a brush of fingers, and the knowledge that they’ll see each other tomorrow, and the day after, and the one after that.

‘I’ve found her,’ Serena tells Jason over shepherd’s pie, when he asks why she’s so happy.

The next day they’re not on the same shift, Bernie just about to head back into theatre as Serena and Ric are heading to Albie’s.

‘Soon,’ Bernie promises, hand lingering on Serena’s arm as they pass. ‘Have one for me?’

‘I’ve found her,’ Serena tells Ric, half way down her second glass and after only the slightest prod from him. ‘It’s Bernie.’

They arrange to go for dinner on Saturday. In the morning Serena visits her father’s grave, for the first time in years.

‘I’ve found her, daddy,’ she says. ‘You were right. And I already know she’s worth the wait.’

*

Sex with Bernie _is_ different, Serena decides, before they’ve even made it to bed.

‘I knew it would be good,’ she groans as Bernie drags lips and teeth and tongue down her neck. ‘But this – oh god, Berenice.’

Bernie draws back in surprise and stares at her; Serena flushes, looks away in embarrassment.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s just – well, you’ve always been Berenice – not you, obviously, but–’

Bernie cuts her off with a kiss. ‘I get it,’ she says. ‘It’s a long time since anyone’s called me Berenice, that’s all.’

Serena’s face falls. ‘You don’t like it. That’s why you shortened it.’

‘No, it’s not that.’

‘What then, darling?’

‘It’s silly, but I knew my soulmate would know me as Berenice. I didn’t want anyone else calling me that.’

Serena smiles, feels the prick of tears. ‘Take me to bed, Berenice. And let’s see if all this hype about soulmates is true.’

*

(It is. It is, _oh god_ it is. _First times shouldn’t be this perfect._ )

*

‘Did you think about me?’ Serena asks later, when they’re lying together, each caressing their own name on the other’s skin.

‘Every day,’ Bernie says softly. ‘I wondered where you were, what you were doing, what my life would be like with you in it. Why I hadn’t met you yet. I’ve wished for it every single birthday – wished you were happy, but that this year we’d find each other. Every time I met the wrong Serena it hurt, so much.’

‘Do you know, you’re the first Berenice I’ve ever met?’

Bernie shakes her head, brushes her lips to Serena’s forehead.

‘My father always told me never to give up hope. I almost had.’ She nudges her nose against Bernie’s, kisses her softly.

‘I don’t think I realised,’ Bernie whispers, so quietly Serena barely hears her, ‘quite how horrible and empty and lonely I felt. Not until it went away. How did I live like that for so long?’

‘Because we didn’t know,’ Serena says simply.

‘I don’t want to feel like that ever again.’

‘You don’t have to.’ Serena kisses her again then nestles closer, sighs as Bernie’s arms fit around her perfectly. ‘Neither of us has to, not ever.’

Bernie smiles, buries her nose in Serena’s hair and breathes her in. ‘You’re perfect, you know.’

‘I rather think we’re destined to feel like that,’ Serena chuckles.

‘Doesn’t mean it’s not true,’ Bernie counters. ‘I, uh, I know it goes without saying but I want to say it anyway, and I felt it before I knew, and…’

‘What, darling?’ Serena coaxes.

‘I love you. More than I ever thought I could love anyone. And it – it scares me,’ she adds, voice tiny, body suddenly tense.

‘It is terrifying, isn’t it?’ Serena agrees. ‘Wonderful too, though.’

When Bernie doesn’t respond Serena searches out her hand and grips firmly.

‘You don’t need to run from this,’ she murmurs, feeling Bernie soften against her, feeling her quiet, ragged sigh of relief at finally – _finally_ – being understood by someone. ‘I love you, Bernie. I knew I would but it’s – oh, it’s so much more than I ever imagined.’

‘I know,’ Bernie says, jiggling her shoulder until Serena looks at her, all warm, wide, adoring eyes. ‘Together?’

‘Always,’ Serena smiles, kissing her tenderly. ‘I’ve found you now, I’m not letting go.’


End file.
